Review: This Time Tomorrow

Barry Gordon

AS unusual Fringe venues go, the back seat of a car must surely be one of the more unorthodox in the programme.

* * * *

Sweet Venues, Grassmarket

Set in a Grassmarket carpark, an audience of seven (two pairs and a trio) switch between three cars over 45 minutes, as they listen in on the conversations of a driver and their passenger.

It’s an odd and occasionally awkward feeling being so close, yet disconnected.

In the first car, a middle-aged, middle-class couple are on their way to a first-date meal. The chit-chat is as gauche and silly as you might expect from a twosome making small talk.

Later on, a husband and wife, about to celebrate 40 years of marriage, get uncomfortably close to the truth that the husband is experiencing the early stages of dementia.

The third, meanwhile, concerns a bossy, oppressive mother who chastises her teenage daughter for getting involved with older boys. The roles, however, are reversed when the daughter suspects her mother of having a lesbian affair.

This Time Tomorrow is a novel concept that will undoubtedly appeal to people’s voyeuristic nature. The cars might not go anywhere - the windows are blacked out - but at least the stories do.